In Zimbabwe, arrest warrant against veteran editor

November 11, 2010 3:58 PM ET

New
York, November 11, 2010--Zimbabwean police
should withdraw an arrest
warrant issued last week against exiled editor Wilf
Mbanga concerning a 2008 story about the murder of an election official,
the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Zimbabwe Republic Police Chief Superintendent Andrew Phiri
told CPJ on Wednesday that Mbanga, publisher of the The Zimbabweannewspaper,
which is edited in London and South Africa and distributed in Zimbabwe, was
wanted for an article "prejudicial to the state."

The December 2008 story alleged that senior officials plotted
the murder of Ignatius Mushangwe, director of
training and polling for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. Officials
targeted Mushangwe because they suspected he leaked
information to the media aboutballot-rigging during the
disputed 2008 presidential
election, the story asserted.

Phiri said the story was untrue. Mushangwe's strangled and
partially burned body turned
up in a mortuary in the capital, Harare, in October 2008 after his
kidnapping four months earlier, according to news reports.

Mbanga told CPJ that The Zimbabwean, while it had covered the murder, had not published the story described by police. While the
London-based Mbanga would not face immediate arrest, the warrant would be an
impediment to his return to Zimbabwe.

"We condemn the
police warrant against Wilf Mbanga as
a form of intimidation distracting from the unsolved slaying of Ignatius
Mushangwe," CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita said. "We call on the
power-sharing government to move forward by implementing promised media
reforms, ones that are essential to a credible election in 2011."

Since President Robert Mugabe announced that a new general election
would be held in mid-2011, members of his ruling ZANU-PF have harassed
several journalists covering pre-election
activities, according to news reports.

Editor's note: The fifth paragraph of this alert has been modified to include comments from Mbanga, who said the newspaper did not publish the story described by police.

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